A SENIOR US General revealed “hundreds of Russian mercenaries” were killed during a surprise attack on an oil refinery controlled by Donald Trump’s forces in Syria.

US Army Brigadier General Jonathan Braga, director of operations for the main US military task force in charge of operations in Iraq and Syria, feared retaliation could lead to World War 3 and claimed the attack occurred on the night of February 7.

He said: “We saw vehicle movements, troop movements, rehearsals and alike, something we had not seen before.

“I called my Russian contact. We deconflict with the Russians to make sure there are no miscalculations and de-escalate anything that might be happening.

“About two hours later we started receiving artillery rounds followed by tank direct fire and then eventually small arms fire from upwards of several hundreds of forces.

“They were moving artillery in closer. We had another phone call with the Russians to say ’stop this’.

“When we feel threatened we have certain measures that we take. We then escalated.

“Our estimates suggest 200 to 300 Russian mercenaries were killed.”

Within minutes US airstrikes came in and bombarded the attackers for three hours.